


We've come to play in the happy house.

by Aaronlisa



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Murder House
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Gen, Post-Canon, Season/Series 08 Spoilers, episode 8x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 04:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17073335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/pseuds/Aaronlisa
Summary: How the residents of the Murder House react to certain events after the witches leave the house.





	We've come to play in the happy house.

**Author's Note:**

> I was a little disappointed that we only really saw the Murder House once this season. I would have love to have seen more of them, especially with how certain events affected the house and its residents, such as the nuclear apocalypse and then when everything was reset. The title of the song comes from the Siouxsie & The Banshees song "Happy House."

It was Tate who noticed that Moira was missing first. It didn't take him long to figure out what had happened either. Or more accurately who was behind it. 

"What did you do Mother?" Tate hisses at her. 

When she had first died, he had been relieved to have her there. As much as he loved his siblings, he couldn't fill the need for her that they both possessed. And maybe, just maybe, there was a part of him that just wanted his mother to look at him like she loved him and was proud of him. 

His siblings were forever grateful for her presence but their relationship had never been that great. A week after she had died, things had resumed their normal course. And then the witches had come and then Moira was gone. 

Constance takes a drag off of her cigarette before draining her glass. He glares at her. She always does this - makes him wait like he's a little kid and she has to be careful on what and how she tells him things. 

"What makes you think I did anything to her?" 

Her voice is bitter and it just makes him angrier. He clenches his fists as he glares at her more. He can out-wait her when it comes to this. 

"You always did like that bitch over me," Constance spits out. "Well she's gone." 

Tate exhales slowly as he counts down from ten. It's a technique that Dr. Harmon had taught him in an effort to control his rage. It seems to work when he is able to just continue standing in front of her without trying to attack her. Maybe he's not a complete quack. 

"Those two witches and I made a deal," Constance finally says. "She's gone, I don't where she is but I do know she won't be coming back." 

"Why do you always have to ruin everything?" Tate demands. 

She looks down and away from him. He watches as she silently stubs out her cigarette in the porcelain ashtray that he had broken when he was five years old. He hates how she'd always been better at manipulating this house into giving her what she wanted. When she looks up at him again there's a hint of vulnerability about her and he can't tell if it's real or not. 

"She's gone Tate, she won't be back, deal with it," Constance tells him. 

She stands up and leaves the room in a cloud of scent that reeks of her pretty floral perfume, cigarette smoke, decay and something else that he can't quite name. He wishes that he had dragged her corpse to the gutter instead of letting her die in here. 

* * * 

It's Ben who figures out that something's _very_ wrong with everything. He's standing in the doorway of the kitchen and realizes that his wife and daughter along with Chad, Tate, Constance and the good doctor are all in the room. This almost _never_ happens.

First of all, the good doctor never leaves his basement office. And secondly, Constance and Vivien despise one another. They're never in the same room at the same time. And although he's been in the house for quite sometime he's still not sure how it works. He does knows when there's someone in one of the rooms that he doesn't want to encounter. He can avoid them but this time he was drawn to the room. 

When Hayden enters the room from the basement stairwell, he knows that something is off, since he can't recall the last time he's seen her. 

"Something's wrong," Ben mumbles. 

"You don't say?" Constance acidly replies. 

He ignores her as he tries to figure it out. And then it hits him, aside from the few mumblings amongst themselves, everything is deadly silent. There are no traffic noises, no birds singing, no airplanes flying over head. He pushes past someone in his haste to get to the front door. He throws the door open and for a moment, nothing looks out of the normal. 

"Ben?" Vivien says his name. 

He takes a step across the threshold, someone tries to grab at him but they miss. The once familiar site of the neighbourhood fades away and instead of Los Angeles, he sees a wasteland. He makes some inarticulate noise as he falls to his knees. The word _wasteland_ doesn't even begin to describe it. The neighbourhood is more of a nightmare out of some documentary about the nuclear bomb. 

"Ben you're scaring me," Vivien tells him. 

He struggles to his feet and walks further and further away from the house. Muscle memory carries him to where the boundaries of the property should be and he steps over an invisible line. There's a sound like a sigh and suddenly he's over the line and nothing is pulling him back. He feels nauseous and he feels like he's fading away. He quickly steps back. 

By the time he makes it back to the house, Chad has left the building, 

"You were _free_ ," Chad breathes. "You were free."

Ben tries to tell him that he may have been free but it wasn't a good thing. The words won't come out of his mouth. 

"What happened?" Violet murmurs. 

"Who cares?" Chad asks. "I don't know about you all but I am going to leave while I still can." 

"Don't!" Ben exclaims. 

Chad looks at him as does everyone else. 

"Ben?" 

"Whatever is happening, whatever allowed me to break free from the property, was also trying to destroy me," Ben says. 

"I don't care," Chad says. "I'd rather be destroyed than stuck in this fucking hellhole for one more moment." 

Before anyone can stop him, Chad is running from the group, from the house and towards what little freedom there seems to be. Once he makes it to the invisible line that demarcates the boundary of the house he stops. Chad turns around one more time and looks at the house and at the small crowd gathered there. 

"I don't care," Chad says one more time. 

He takes a step backward and closes his eyes. 

At first nothing happens and then he starts to fade away. One moment he's there, whole and real and the next he's melted away into nothingness. Someone sighs and then before Ben can really process it, others are racing across the lawn and towards freedom. He can't watch, he backs away from them and rushes into the house. 

Later he finds out that his family had stayed behind. There are others but he only cares about his wife and his daughter. 

* * * 

It's Violet who realizes that something feels strange. She's used to the house feeling strange but this time it's different. Violet reaches out with her senses and it feels as if the house is sulking. At the same time, it feels as if it's gloating. She breaks the connection to the house feeling even more confused than before. 

She shifts in her bed and reaches out for ... no one. But she was certain Tate was in her bed. That she had forgiven him but she knows that's impossible. She can't let go of who he is or of all the horrible things that he has done. Something is horribly wrong. There's a noise outside that startles her. 

It's the sound of a car hitting something. But that's impossible. There haven't been any cars in months. And then she realizes that the sun is shining in her room. It hasn't been sunny ever since ... What she can't remember what it is. She gets out of bed and the house dresses her in the clothes that she's most comfortable in. 

Violet makes her way downstairs and she can't quite tell what's wrong or different but it's as if there is an image superimposed on the familiar image of her house. She hears another thud as if that car from earlier is hitting something ( _someone_ her mind whispers). She makes her way to the front door and walks out of it, not even aware that she's slipping through the physical door.

A black car roars off and she sees Constance standing over something in the street. As she floats closer to it, she can see it's Michael. She can't quite make out what Constance is saying because Constance should be in the house but she's not. And she realizes that Constance is alive. But she was dead. The boy laying on the street calls out to her. 

She moves closer to him even though she has always avoided the boy. He may be her half-brother by blood but he has always repulsed her. He looks up at her and she can see that he is great pain, his body is mangled and broken. 

"Please," Michael begs her. 

Violet watches as he coughs and blood spills from his lips. She realizes that he must be dying and there's no help coming from Constance. And she's not sure what he wants her to do. 

"I'm scared," Michael says. "I don't want to die, please help me." 

There's a part of her that wants to help him. A part of her that doesn't want to see him die out in the street. But she's not physical and she can't help. And then she realizes that she can feel the warm pavement against her bare foot. He shifts and grabs hold of her ankle. 

"You're my sister," Michael says. "Please help me to the house." 

There's a crazed look in his eyes and she can't tell if it's from fear or pain or some combination of both. She wonders if it's the house speaking or if it's the boy speaking. 

"Pl-please," Michael says. 

He gasps and more blood spills from his lips. 

She kneels down and he tries to smile at her but it's nothing more than a grimace. Violet takes his hand into her own. As she does so, she tries not to shudder. Even now as he's dying, she can feel how _wrong_ he is. She has to fight the house to keep herself from dragging him to it. _It_ wants him and she can't see any good coming out of that. 

"Pl-please, don't wanna die," Michael mumbles. 

"I know," Violet says as she brushes some hair off of his face. "But I can't take you there." 

He looks at her and she can't tell if he's looking at her with hate or with gratefulness. Perhaps it's some combination of the two. She shifts so that she's sitting cross-legged and then gently moves him so that her head is in her lap. 

"I'm scared."

"I know but it's okay," Violet tells him. "I'll be here with you until the end." 

Later on what will horrify her when she thinks about it, is that the neighbourhood wasn't quiet or dead. It was busy. Several cars drove by and people were walking on the sidewalks but no one stopped to see why a boy and a girl were on the street. While she sits there, she gently pets him. She tells him that it's okay to let go and even though she doesn't know what type of afterlife she's consigning him to, she stays with him until he breathes his last breath. 

"Violet." 

She looks up and sees Moira standing on the invisible boundary. And she knows that somehow time was changed. It hurts when she tries to think on it too long. 

"You should come in now dear," Moira tells her with a sad smile. 

Violet looks down one more time at the dead boy in her lap. All she can do is hope that she made the right decision to let him die on the street instead of on the house's land. She may have always despised him for what he _was_ but deep-down inside she was never able to fully deny that he was her half-brother as well.

"Please Violet," Moira anxiously says. 

She gently moves him to the ground and stands up. She feels dizzy and almost falls but Moira grips her wrist and is pulling her back to the safety of the house. Back to where she'll always be a sixteen year old girl no matter how old she feels. 

((END))


End file.
